DO NEWSWEEK’S PROBLEMS stem from a lack of newsroom diversity?

UPDATE: Jay Rosen: “We have to chart the sourcing a little to see how thin the original story actually was.”

And Wagner James Au emails:

Glenn, the Newsweek retraction has got me thinking: how many *other* MSM allegations of US military abuse/torture of prisoners were based on a single anonymous sources? How many of them depended solely on the “testimony” of Al Qaeda training camp graduates, who are taught to fabricate claims of abuse?

This could be the ideal challenge of bloggers (the media is hardly inclined to police itself), going through past stories with a fine tooth comb. (And I’ve no doubt many exist.)

Newsweek has set a precedent by retracting this one. Will other media outlets retract their own poorly sourced stories, when confronted?

Watch it, WJA — you’ll never write for Salon again with suggestions like that . . . .

InstaPunk, meanwhile, has a huge scoop that’s just waiting for Time or Newsweek to pick it up. And the sourcing is impeccable.

UPDATE: Former Newsweek staffer Alex Wong writes:

I just can’t see a less established reporter getting a pass on such a fact w/o more backup documentation than the hearsay of one anonymous source. Newsweek’s prizing of their Bigfoots is on a higher level than the other publications I’ve worked for. It’s not necessarily a bad thing — branding a couple of writers is a pretty good business strategy. But perhaps, this time, it bit the mag in the ass.

Perhaps. Meanwhile, reader Kathy Caldwell emails:

Chris Matthews was turning himself into a pretzel last night trying to rationalize the legitimacy of the Newsweek story and essentially ended up with the opinion that even if the reporting was factually incorrect, because of the Army’s previous abuses it was philosophically reported correctly. It was, basically, the Dan Rather argument. It was painful to watch and Matthews really looked desperate to me. Also, isn’t there an association between Newsweek and MSNBC?

Yes, there is. Though that didn’t stop me from slamming them. (The transcript for that show, which I didn’t see, isn’t up yet. It’ll be here when it is.)

MORE STILL: Michael Silence posts the Knoxville News-Sentinel’s policy on anonymous sources. Perhaps the folks at Newsweek should give it a read.

HEALTHCARE BLOG-A-RAMA: This week’s Grand Rounds is up!

THE WORST SLAUGHTER SINCE TIANANAMEN SQUARE? Gateway Pundit reports on Uzbekistan.

MORE SHOCKING BEHAVIOR from U.N. peacekeepers.

It could have been worse. It could have been Yanni.

EVERY YEAR, somebody makes a fool of him/herself while giving a commencement speech.

How about going to Riyadh and telling them how they’re seen? That would be real courage . . . .

WRITING IN THE OTTAWA SUN, Val Sears says that the revival of Canadian politics may require blogs.

AUSTIN BAY responds to Andrew Sullivan. So, in a way, does Irshad Manji.

UPDATE: Heh. Well, puppy-blending has been mentioned on national TV, so there must be something to it, right?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Various people have asked about the origin of the puppy-blending thing. Here’s the original post by Frank J., which spawned many further iterations. The good news is that people trying to dig up Internet dirt on me will have to wade through a lot of chaff.

Or, if they’re at Newsweek, or CBS, or The Boston Globe, they can just publish it, photos and all! And, no doubt, blame the Internet later . . . .

In the interest of fairness, I just hope they’ll note that even my fiercest critics admit that I do “a better than average robot dance.” Some truths will pierce even the thickest fog of lies!

HERE’S A TAKE on Peter Robinson & Todd Zywicki’s Dartmouth victory.

BUILDING BETTER HUMANS: An interesting article from the Washington Post:

“You have to make a distinction between the science and the technological applications,” says Francis Fukuyama, a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics and director of the Human Biotechnology Governance Project. “It’s probably true that in terms of the basic science, it’s pretty hard to stop that. It’s not one guy in a laboratory somewhere. But not everything that is scientifically possible will actually be technologically implemented and used on a large scale. In the case of human cloning, there’s an abstract possibility that people will want to do that, but the number of people who are going to want to take the risk is going to be awfully small.”

Taboos will play an important role, Fukuyama says. “We could really speed up the whole process of drug improvement if we did not have all the rules on human experimentation. If companies were allowed to use clinical trials in Third World countries, paying a lot of poor people to take risks that you wouldn’t take in a developed country, we could speed up technology quickly. But because of the Holocaust — ”

Fukuyama thinks the school of hard knocks will slow down a lot of attempts. “People may in the abstract say that they’re willing to take that risk. But the moment you have a deformed baby born as a result of someone trying to do some genetic modification, I think there will be a really big backlash against it.”

The article mentions Moore’s Law, but Fukuyama quickly encounters Godwin’s Law . . . And, of course, Fukuyama, like many bioconservatives, is much more worried about biotechnological improvements that work as advertised than about those that fail. In fact, Fukuyama, and Leon Kass, are deeply troubled that these visions will come true:

Ray Kurzweil, an artificial-intelligence pioneer and winner of the National Medal of Technology, shrugs at the controversy over the use of stem cells from human embryos: “All the political energy that has gone into this issue — it is not even slowing down the most narrow approach.” It is simply being pursued outside the United States — in China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Scandinavia and Great Britain, where scientists will probably achieve success first, he notes.

In the next couple of decades, Kurzweil predicts, life expectancy will rise to at least 120 years. Most diseases will be prevented or reversed. Drugs will be individually tailored to a person’s DNA. Robots smaller than blood cells — nanobots, as they are called — will be routinely injected by the millions into people’s bloodstreams. They will be used primarily as diagnostic scouts and patrols, so if anything goes wrong in a person’s body, it can be caught extremely early.

As James Watson, co-winner of the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA, famously put it: “No one really has the guts to say it, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn’t we?”

Why, indeed?

UPDATE: Reader Aram Hagopian emails:

Here is my prediction- you will (~ next 5 yrs) will renounce your conservative position and become a anti- religion liberal. You will claim that the conservative movement is controlled by religious fanatics. You will cite the Schiavo case (I have no dog in this fight ) , gay marriage ban, and some event the future which reinforces your inner fear of Christians. Seeing the rise of Muslimism only adds to your fears and mistrusts. I think this started with your grandfather (or father ) who felt that all preachers were meal-grubbing charlatans. Starting with this distorted view ( I am amazed how an intellectual like yourself would by into this mindless bias) you seem to have your fears reinforced by some experience or persons. You are one of the best bloggers and I hope( I dare not say pray) my prediction will turn out to be false.

I think that Hagopian has me confused with Andrew Sullivan. On the other hand, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a conservative, and only simple-minded wartime litmus tests make me out to be so.

MARC DANZIGER talks about Pajamas Media.

A PRETTY MUCH IRREFUTABLE ARGUMENT as to why there will be more Star Trek and Star Wars movies in the future.

UNSCAM UPDATE:

Russia’s stubborn pro-Saddam stance in the UN Security Council brought Vladimir Putin’s party and political machine enormous financial rewards in the form of bribe money coming from the UN Oil for Food Program, according to two detailed reports being released today by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI). Those bribes have fueled Putin’s drive to restore authoritarian government in Russia. It is more than just corruption. Senate investigators say Saddam’s penetration of the Russian political system was so deep that it could — and did — cause the passage of pro-Iraqi measures in the Russian Duma.

Were there any countries that opposed the war without being bribed? I’m just, you know, asking.

HUGH HEWITT:

Even as the blogosphere exploded in anger at Newsweek –an anger that will combine with talk radio to drive the message of the weekly’s unconscionable negligence resulting in the loss of human life and grave damage to American interests—some blog critics at the PersonalDemocracyForum were arguing that blogs’ day has already passed. I pointed out to the audience that the Newsweek meltdown again underscores the value of the medium in that the blogs are relentlessly pushing the story of Newsweek’s screw-up which is the only antidote to the damage done. It isn’t a perfect antidote by any means –not even close. But at least new media is putting the truth out there so that any fair-minded observer will know that Newsweek had no basis for reporting the story that has caused so much havoc.

Newsweek has since admitted that, of course. But if this had happened ten years ago, they probably wouldn’t have.

UPDATE: Sgt. Mom has written a memo to various participants. (Via M. Simon).

TAEGAN GODDARD’S POLITICAL WIRE has tracked down Walter Shapiro, and asked him one question. It’s about filibusters. His answer proves that a good pundit can make anything interesting.

Kevin Patrick, meanwhile, thinks that Democrats will win the filibuster fight.

ORIN KERR offers congratulations to a crop of graduating law-student bloggers.

Now just get that little bar-exam formality out of the way, and life will be sweet!

MORE TROUBLE IN BOLIVIA: I suspect that Hugo Chavez is behind this.

BILL QUICK reports: “It’s Official: San Francisco Election Laws Won’t Regulate Internet Web Logs.”

READER CORINN PARADICE asks me to publicize the Dollywood-sponsored Lazy River Float-a-thon to raise money for Ronald McDonald House. You can read about it here and there’s a registration form here. How could it not be fun?

EVERYBODY SEEMS TO BE PUTTING THEIR SPIN on the new Star Wars movies:

George Lucas, sometimes accused of reinforcing racial stereotypes with his movies, has done it again, according to critics.

Latino critics in particular charge his latest Star Wars epic, Episode II: Attack of the Clones, toys with American paranoia about Mexican immigration with its cloned army of swarthy lookalikes who march in lockstep by the tens of thousands, and ultimately end up serving as Darth Vader’s white-suited warriors. . . .

Lucas was in Cannes and could not be reached for comment.

I just hope, rather weakly, that this new one won’t suck.

Professor Bainbridge, on the other hand, levels a more serious charge against the forthcoming one. “In choosing to put those words in Obi-Wan’s mouth – ‘Only a Sith thinks in absolutes’ – Lucas did more than just play to Hollywood left-liberalism. He betrayed his own creation.”

The specter of “Mr. T.” is also invoked.

NEWSWEEK has retracted its Koran-flushing story now, after its earlier weak apology didn’t satisfy.

Good for them. Next time, of course, maybe they’ll put some of those vaunted Big Media fact-checkers and editors to work before they publish.

As a comment over at Ed Morrisey’s blog notes, they know how to be tactful when they want to be:

Newsweek ran the story knowing that it would excite the passions of the world’s muslim population.

Contrast this with the media’s refusal to show pictures of our fellow citizens jumping out the the world trade center. We were told that such pictures would unneccessarily anger the American people and lead to violence against Muslim Americans.

As I’ve said, they know how to be exquisitely sensitive, when they care to be.

And this does kind of cut some Newsweek defenders off at the knees.

I want to add that I don’t think there’s anything immoral about flushing a Koran (or a Bible) down the toilet, assuming you’ve got a toilet that’s up to that rather daunting task, and I think it’s amusing to hear people who usually worry about excessive concern for religious beliefs suddenly taking a different position. Nor do I think that doing so counts as torture, and I think that it debases the meaning of “torture” to claim otherwise. If this had happened, it might have been — indeed, would have been — impolitic or unwise. But not evil.

And anyone who thinks otherwise needs to be willing to apply the same kind of criticism to things like Piss Christ, or to explain why offending the sensibilities of one kind of religious believer is “art” while doing the same in another context is “torture.” If, that is, they want to be taken at all seriously.

UPDATE: Austin Bay has thoughts after his MSNBC appearance.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Dave Price offers a prediction:

Released detainees current and future will falsely claim the Koran-flushing happened, just as their Al Qaeda training manuals instruct them to do. Liberals in and out of the media will cite the detainees and claim vindication, while remaining utterly oblivious to why some people always complain they’re working with the enemy.

It’s funny that press accounts on this topic don’t seem to mention that Al Qaeda folks are trained to lie about torture, etc., when reporting on that topic.

And the fake-but-accurate defense is appearing as scheduled.

DARFUR UPDATE: Here’s a diverse collection of blog posts on the genocide in Darfur.

CLAYTON CRAMER offers a (modestly) cautionary note regarding the “Newsweek lied, people died” meme:

As long as we remember that this is satire, we are okay. At this point, the evidence is not that Newsweek intentionally lied, but that they were misled, and were negligent in rushing into print with a poorly substantiated story.

In this sense, there is a similarity to what happened about the WMDs that we couldn’t find in Iraq. There is one rather substantial difference: the claims about Iraq and WMDs had enormous substantiation, from previous use, from mid-1990s nuclear weapon development, from Iraqi intransigence about UN inspectors, and from lies that Hussein told to his own military about these WMDs.

What did Newsweek have when it decided to blacken the U.S. reputation in the Islamic world? One anonymous source who thinks he saw some mention of this allegation of desecration of the Koran in a report–and now isn’t so sure that he saw it.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: SayUncle:

The more appropriate meme would be Newsweek used an unreliable source and people died.

It is quite sad that Newsweek’s defense consists of saying they couldn’t verify it was untrue.

Yes, it seems the burden of proof lies with those who want a retraction, and not with the original sensational account.

UPDATE: Matt Welch defends the press, but in a rather weak fashion. Nobody’s arguing that reporters wake up in the morning asking themselves how to lose the war for America. At least I’m not. Er, except maybe for Robert Fisk.

But in many ways, they act almost as if they were doing so, and it’s no accident. As the James Fallows anecdote reported here illustrates, leading representatives of the profession regard themselves as loyal to journalism, not to the United States — and are proud to do so, and it seems clear that they reflect that priority in their work.

When you go out of your way to report the bad news, and bury the good news, when you’re credulous toward critics (remember the Boston Globe porn photos?) and treat all positive news as presumptive lies, and when it’s clear that the enemy relies on press behavior in planning its campaigns, then you’ve got a problem. Huffing and puffing in response isn’t constructive.

I hate to keep using the analogy of reporting on racial issues, but it’s relevant because it’s a case where the press realized that it was reporting on minorities in a way that shaped people’s views toward the negative and did harm, and decided to change. So we know they can take account of those things when they care. And because they haven’t tried to do it here, it seems fair to conclude that they don’t care.

Despite Matt’s implication, I don’t get up in the morning trying to figure out how to destroy freedom of the press in America. Instead, I keep trying to persuade the folks at Newsweek, CBS, etc. not to flush free expression down the toilet through their irresponsibility and bias.

It’s long been fashionable to say that the survival of free enterprise depended on the responsible behavior of businesses. I think that the survival of free expression depends on the responsible behavior of businesses in the media field. And I think it’s awfully hard — so hard that Matt doesn’t even try — to defend this behavior as responsible.

MORE: Here’s the Fallows anecdote, excerpted from The Atlantic Monthly.

JAMES LILEKS:

Tote all the seasons up, and Trek ran for 28 seasons. It started with LBJ and ended half a decade into the 21st century.

If he thinks that the end of Star Trek will mean the end of fanboy disputation, though, he’s got more faith in humanity than even Gene Roddenberry had.

UPDATE: I wonder how Rod Roddenberry’s Trek Nation documentary is going?

CONDI RICE:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice blasted an unsubstantiated report of Koran desecrations by US troops as “appalling” and said it had created a “very major problem” for Washington in the Muslim world. . . .

“I think it’s perfectly plausible and even likely that there were those who used this event to stoke anti-American sentiment for their own purposes,” she said.

Without directly criticizing Newsweek, she said, “I hope that everybody will step back and take a look at how they handled this. Everybody. It’s just unfortunate because it became a very major problem.”

Indeed.

UPDATE: John Tierney’s column on war coverage seems to me to be more timely this week than it was last week when it came out.

THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS:

The Kuwaiti parliament has voted to give women full political rights.
The amendment to the Kuwait’s electoral law means women can for the first time vote and stand in parliamentary and local elections.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: And don’t miss this week’s Carnival of the Revolutions, collecting democracy-blogging around the world.